This 7,600 mile leg between Auckland (New Zealand) and Itajai (Brazil) will go down in the annals of the race as one of the most difficult. The seven crews sailed for 16 days in particularly strong wind and sea conditions. These conditions also led to a tragedy with the disappearance of John Fisher (crew member of Team Sun Hung Kai /Scallywag following a wild gybe). As well as numerous damages on the boats: MAPFRE tore its mainsail and damaged its mainsail track, Turn the Tide on Plastic encountered problems on its standing rigging, Vestas 11th Hour Racing dismasted...
The finish between Team Brunel and Dongfeng Race Team took place under the sun and on slightly choppy seas, barely swept by an evanescent NNE'ly wind of just a handful of knots. The two competitors thus progressed slowly towards the finish line and within sight. Since rounding Cape Horn, thanks to some timely strategic choices and following damage to their rivals, the two leaders had thus gained the upper hand over the rest of the fleet.
Team Brunel had taken the lead of the race a week after the start in Auckland thanks to a northern option in the Pacific. This option was chosen by the navigator Andrew Cape and allowed him to round Cape Horn first and pocket the bonus point (for the first to switch to the South Atlantic). Bouwe Bekking's crew thus managed to contain the ardour of the Dongfeng Race Team, which he controlled on the approach to Itajai before cutting the line at 14 h 45 min 18 s (UTC, 16 h 45 min 18 s French time) after 16 days 13 hours 45 minutes and 18 seconds at sea (19.56 knots of average speed over the 7778.45 miles actually covered).
This is the first victory of the Dutch team in this 2017-2018 edition. The Dutch team had never done better than a fourth place finish (in Cape Town and Melbourne), and a second consecutive Dutch victory after AkzoNobel's victory in Auckland. " It's been an incredible stage," commented the skipper. We're sad in our hearts because of the loss of John Fisher, it's a feeling that's still deep inside us, but from a sporting point of view, we sailed very well, it's going to give us a lot of confidence"
Embarked on this stage on the Dutch VO65, Frenchman Thomas Rouxel added: " We've known for three to four days that the end would be tense, we've been sailing on sight for over 24 hours with Dongfeng, we're happy to have managed to keep a 3-4 mile lead and a few hundred metres at the finish to score points"
With this victory, which gives him 16 points (double-counting stage and two bonus points at the Horn and Itajai), Team Brunel is back in the game. The final is likely to be breathtaking!
14 minutes and 50 seconds after the arrival of the Dutch crew, at 15:00:08 (UTC), Dongfeng Race Team in turn crossed the finish line. The Franco-Chinese boat finished in second place for the fourth time in six legs, narrowly missing out on the top step of the podium once again. With this second place, Dongfeng Race Team achieved a very good operation, as the points for this stage count double. As a result, the red boat will be able to pick up some precious points from MAPFRE, the leader in the general classification, who unfortunately had to put the race on hold after rounding Cape Horn, due to the breakage of the mainsail rail before setting off again. Moreover, if the Spanish crew finished the race in its current position (5th place), Dongfeng Race Team would take the reins of the race.
Enough to satisfy a Charles Caudrelier out " "exhausted." of this long stage which will have required " we tried to come back, but we felt like we didn't have the energy. We're especially happy to be there, given what's happened, everyone's there in good shape, no injuries. The big plus is this second place which will allow us to come back, even to pass MAPFRE, with a big time advantage which will give us a little extra point if we don't do too many mistakes until the finish and if we finish all the stages (*) . We had a lot of frustration since the beginning of the race to always be a little bit behind them, whereas we often dominated them, now we're happy with this good operation."
(*) The first in cumulative time at the end of the Volvo Ocean Race will pocket a bonus point.
The classification of the seventh stage Auckland-Itajai (Tuesday at 18:10, French time) :
1. Team Brunel (Bouwe Bekking), 16 days 13 hours 45 minutes and 18 seconds
2. Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier), at 14'50"
3. Team AkzoNobel (Simeon Tienpont) 254 miles from the finish line
4. Turn the Tide on Plastic (Dee Caffari) 694 miles from the finish line
5. MAPFRE (Xabi Fernandez) 781 miles from the finish line
Withdrawals: Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag (David Witt) and Vestas 11th Hour Racing (Charlie Enright)
